Austrian oil and gas company OMV AG (OMV.VI) Thursday strongly rebutted suspicions of market manipulation and insider trading raised against its chief executive, and said it feels confident an investigation by the local financial market watchdog will clear him of any wrongdoing.

"Along all existing rules and regulations, everything has been done correctly and 100% transparent," OMV spokesman Thomas Huemer said of the scrutinized share-buy by Chief Executive Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer.

On March 23, Ruttenstorfer acquired OMV shares for EUR620,444, only one week before the company announced it had reached a deal to sell a 21.2% stake in Hungarian oil company MOL Nyrt. (MOL.BU) for EUR1.4 billion, or roughly double the market price.

The Austrian Financial Market Authority, FMA, has opened a routine investigation into the share-buy, its spokesman Klaus Grubelnik confirmed, a key element of which is an interview with Ruttenstorfer published by Austrian weekly magazine Profil on the same day of his share-buy. In the interview, Ruttenstorfer said OMV would "hold on to its MOL stake, at least this year."

One week later, the sale of the stake was signed, sending OMV's share price up some 3.3%.

"You can be assured that Ruttenstorfer said what he said out of the best knowledge he had at the time," Huemer said Thursday, adding that Ruttenstorfer still holds the shares and therefore has realized no gain from the transaction. OMV's share price has since fallen, leaving a modest book gain of around EUR5,000, Huemer confirmed.

Huemer furthermore said the share-buy was communicated immediately both through the directors dealings directory of the FMA as well as on OMV's Web site.

"It's almost ridiculous. Would anyone who has anything to hide go out of his way to do it in the most transparent way possible?" Huemer said.

The investigation is the third of its kind against Ruttenstorfer in the past few years, Grubelnik said. Both previous investigations were closed with no results.

If this investigation reaches an incriminating conclusion, it could lead to one of two next steps, according to FMA. It could lead to an FMA-conducted process based on market manipulation, in which case the maximum penalty is a EUR75,000 fine. Or it could be handed over to the public prosecutor to be tried as a case of insider trading. The latter could result in a maximum jail sentence of three years.

Relevant Web sites: www.omv.com; www.fma.at

-By Flemming E. Hansen, Dow Jones Newswires; +43 1 513 69 22 10; flemming.hansen@dowjones.com